Small Alabama town: Relief that child hostage is safe

Law enforcement personnel station themselves on the property of Jimmy Lee Sykes, Monday, Feb. 4, 2013 in Midland City, Ala. Officials say they stormed a bunker in Alabama to rescue a 5-year-old child being held hostage there after Sykes, his abductor, was seen with a gun.

Associated Press

Summary

For six anguished days, people in this small Alabama town asked just one question about the 5-year-old boy being held hostage in an underground bunker by a menacing, unpredictable neighbor: "Is he free yet?"

MIDLAND CITY, Ala. — For six anguished days, people in this small Alabama town asked just one question about the 5-year-old boy being held hostage in an underground bunker by a menacing, unpredictable neighbor: "Is he free yet?"

After FBI agents determined that talks with an increasingly agitated Jimmy Lee Dykes were breaking down, they stormed the closet-sized shelter and freed the kindergartner. The 65-year-old armed captor was killed by law enforcement officials, an official told The Associated Press.

Authorities say the boy, who they believed to be facing imminent danger, was doing well after his ordeal. But they have yet to answer questions as to how they monitored Dykes and exactly what prompted the rescue Monday afternoon.

And almost a week after Dykes was accused of fatally shooting a school bus driver on Jan. 29 and grabbing the child at random from a busload of students, the man described as threatening and volatile by his neighbors lay dead on his property in Midland City.

An official in Midland City, citing information from law enforcement, said police had shot Dykes. The official requested anonymity because the official wasn't authorized to speak publicly about the investigation into the case that had captured national attention.

As they had been throughout the standoff, authorities were tight-lipped about the end of the standoff. Neighbors said they heard a bang and gunshots, but the FBI wouldn't confirm that. Authorities also kept under wraps exactly how they were able to monitor Dykes and the boy in such a confined space.

"We have a big crime scene behind us to process," said Special Agent Steve Richardson of the FBI's office in Mobile, Ala. "I can't talk about sources, techniques or methods that we used. But I can tell you the success story is (the boy) is safe."

He declined to say if the property had been rigged with explosives.

Dale County Sheriff Wally Olson said late Monday that Dykes was armed when officers entered the bunker to rescue the child. He said the boy was threatened, but declined to elaborate.

"That's why we went inside — to save the child," he said. " ... It's a relief for us to be able to reunited a mother with her child."

Daryle Hendry, who lives about a quarter-mile from the bunker, said he heard a boom Monday afternoon, followed by what sounded like a gunshot. Dykes had been seen with a gun, and officers concluded the boy was in imminent danger, Richardson told reporters.

It was not immediately clear how authorities determined the man had a gun.

After the rescue, authorities, said, the boy was reunited with his mother and appeared to be OK. He was taken to a hospital in nearby Dothan. Officials have said he has Asperger's syndrome and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

Richardson said he had been to the hospital to see the boy and the child was laughing, joking, eating and "doing the things you'd expect a normal 5- or 6-year-old to do."

The rescue capped a hostage drama that disrupted the lives of many in a tranquil town of 2,400 people, nestled amid peanut farms and cotton fields some 100 miles southeast of the state capital of Montgomery. It is a small, close-knit community that has long relied on a strong Christian faith, a policy of "love thy neighbor" and the power of group prayer.

The child's plight prompted nightly candlelight vigils. Fliers appealing for a safe end to the crisis were tucked into the chain-link fence along with ribbons at the school where the kindergartner was enrolled.